So – 18 million Twitter users worldwide and fewer than 49 million internet users in the UK. That’s 36.9%, if anyone’s counting. So even if all the Twitter users in the world were in the UK, they still wouldn’t make up 42% of UK internet users.

So where does that rubbish 42% statistic come from?

One possibility is the 42% of users who use Twitter less than they did when they first joined (right). But a more likely candidate is the 42% of internet users who are “aware” of Twitter. That’s aware as in “I think I’ve heard of that”, rather than actually using it.

You can see this in a nice chart (left), helpfully provided by the people who carried out the survey. But you have to actually scroll through as many as 32 slides out of 93 in a really long slideshow, so I guess that’s a bit hard.

This leads us on to the third statistic in our list – the UK’s 50% of Facebook users.

The same graphic that shows 42% of people have heard of Twitter indicates that 51% of internet users are active Facebook members. I assume this is where the Metro stat comes from. But that’s worldwide users. UK Facebook users actually make up 72% of the online population – which is shown in yet another helpful and easy-to-understand chart from the survey slideshow (below).

The upshot is that Metro got two out of three key facts wrong in its tiny (100 word) story. How is that even possible? How hard can it be to look through a sodding slideshow and note down the numbers correctly? And why on earth can’t the writer remember that this is a global survey, not a UK one?

It’s not simply the lack of checking and understanding. If you think about it for just a moment, the Twitter statistic just has to be wrong. How many Twitter users do you know? Is it nearly half of everyone you know who’s online? Of course not – and that’s what the writer of this should have thought. Don’t just parrot figures (especially if you get them wrong). Actually think about what you’re writing, for heaven’s sake.

More from the illiterate and innumerate world of journalism real soon…

3 Comments

There is a reason why hacks have chosen to work with words in the first place – usually a failure to achieve a GCSE Maths pass.
Don’t start me on journalists and numbers. If I had a pound for the number of times an editor has asked me how to work out percentages, I’d have …. er … is it £3 or £4.50?